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CPA PE Deal Tracker™: The Consolidator Gets Consolidated
Culminates with $5 billion CBIZ – Grant Thornton deal as flow drops 47%.
By CPA Trendlines Research
CBIZ spent years buying firms before agreeing to be bought itself on July 29 by Grant Thornton for $5 billion.
The biggest deal ever comes as the deal flow slows, but the deals get bigger.
MORE Private Equity
The CPA Trendlines CPA PE Deal Tracker™ records nine institutionally backed acquisitions in July, down from 17 a year earlier. The rolling 12-month institutional transaction count falls from a record 230 in March to 225 in April, 223 in May, 215 in June and 207 in July.
Erin Pohan: How to Help Your Clients Understand Accounting | The Disruptors
Connect with your clients: “You’re an entrepreneur, I’m an entrepreneur.”
Sponsored by True Advisor: The Definitive Success Guide for Client Advisory Services by Hitendra Patil
The Disruptors
With Liz Farr
Erin Pohan’s firm, Upkeeping, is on a mission “to make accounting relevant and understandable” to all its clients. Pohan describes Upkeeping as “a tax-ready firm” that does everything but tax prep, which they hand off to the clients’ tax professionals. But their hand-off doesn’t stop with providing the tax pro with the information needed for the tax return.
“We don’t believe in just handing pieces of paper over to our clients and letting them run with it,” she explains. “We do work with them throughout the year. We do our client calls where we’re explaining the numbers and the stories behind the numbers, especially, and making sure that they feel equipped and empowered to understand their business finances.”
Rillet’s Raise: Betting $100 Million on Fewer Accountants
$1 Billion Valuation Puts AI at the Center of Accounting’s Next Software War
By CPA Trendlines Research
Rillet’s new financing round values the accounting software company at $1 billion as AI-native ledgers, accounting agents and incumbent ERP vendors compete for control of the accounting workflow — and investors fund competing answers to the profession’s labor problem.
Rillet’s $100 million Series C gives the market another heavily financed challenger just six months after Basis raised $100 million at a $1.15 billion valuation. Around them, Ramp, Digits, Puzzle, Light and SoftLedger are pushing into different layers of the finance stack while Oracle, SAP, Microsoft, Workday and NetSuite defend systems already embedded in corporate accounting.
The fight is over where artificial intelligence belongs in accounting software – inside the system of record, in agents operating across existing systems or in a new layer that sits around the ERP and performs the work.
“What stands out to us is how customers actually run on it — multi-billion-dollar businesses operating with finance teams a tenth the traditional size, closing their books continuously,” says Seth Pierrepont, an ICONIQ general partner and Rillet board member.
David Podell: The Retirement Plan Provision Most Tax Advisers Overlook | The Concierge CPA
Solo 401(k)s let you think beyond retirement.
CPA Trendlines: Where Accounting Pros Go Pro. – See Today’s Special Offer
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The Concierge CPA
With Jackie Meyer
MORE Jackie Meyer | MORE CPA Trendlines Streaming Network
Podell explains the solo 401(k)’s advantages over simpler plans like SEPs or SIMPLEs, dives into common mistakes business owners make, and shares how smart structuring — including leveraging Roth contributions and defined benefit add-ons — can elevate retirement planning from compliance to strategy.
“Putting money in these retirement plans pulls money out of the business and creates a personal net worth,” Podell says.
Five Ways to Evaluate Your Leadership Team
Not just once, either.
By Anthony Zecca
Leading from the Edge
“Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.” – Andrew Carnegie, industrialist
MORE by Anthony Zecca
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The above quote by Andrew Carnegie really puts a fence around the key responsibilities of your leadership team:
- Ability to lead their team to work together toward a common vision
- Ability to direct (drive) their individual team members’ efforts and accomplishments toward maintaining alignment with the firm’s objectives and
- Ability to inspire and motivate each team member to achieve more than they have and to reach top performance and top results as a team